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Photo by Jethro Click photo to enlarge. Jethro's kitchen includes this old-time stove, which he inherited from the structure's original owners. Flapjacks are today's tasty fare. |
Jethro built
this kitchen himself. He added it without anyone's permission to the existing
structure, which he doesn't own, on land that's not his. The cabin is rustic
but has a friendly charm about it. Tibetan prayer beads swing from the door.
A fur hat hangs from a nail in a wood beam. Dried purple and pink flowers
are strung above the stove, adding the illusion of spring to the reality
of winter. We munch on the carrots and look out the windows at the birch
tree forest. His cabin sits on top of a sloping knoll, which overlooks a
quarter-mile-wide lake now covered in sparkling snow. A stream with a tiny
bridge across it flows just yards from the front door. The property is breathtaking
and enviable, but it belongs to someone Jethro has never met. He is squatting
on this land, known as the Happy Valley, and has done so for 20 years.
Home, to me, has always meant a place that's comfortable and safe and warm. While Jethro's place is beautiful and cozy, it's only partially warm and partially safe. Because he doesn't own the land he's made his home on, Jethro could be kicked out at a moment's notice. "I like living here because this is a unique place and a natural setting," says Jethro, who has asked that I not use his real name. "I've seen every kind of animal there is to see. There's ducks out here all summer breeding and nesting. There's fox out here. There's lynx out here. There's marten out here. There's moose. I like the natural setting. I like the fact that it's not two acres in some subdivision with people all around me." |
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Suburbia never agreed with Jethro. The tall buildings, the stop-and-go traffic, the lack of nature and the fast pace made his stomach turn. Even when he was 18 and living just 15 miles from the center of Boston, a town full of things to do and places to see, he knew he wanted to head in the opposite direction. It's easy to imagine him lying on his back, hands folded behind his head, eyes on the ceiling, knowing he had to get away. He wanted to go somewhere where the air was clean, wildlife was abundant and one couldn't help but have an adventure. |
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| Hear Jethro talk about the call of Alaska. | |
| Barely out
of his high school graduation cap and gown, Jethro jumped on a series of
airplane rides heading toward America's last frontier. Leaving his family
and friends behind didn't worry him. Alaska was worth it. Plus, the Grateful
Dead were going to be there.
It was to be a classic hippie party of large proportions. Folks had traveled from all over Alaska, Canada and beyond to see the Dead play for the 1980 summer solstice in Anchorage. Jethro was just one of thousands. Drugs flowed like the music from Jerry Garcia's guitar, and women swirled in long Indian skirts and macramé bikini tops. Men held their arms above their heads while dancing barefoot and shirtless. The Chugach Mountains towered in the distance, rugged and regal in the seemingly endless sunlight. The concert was like a big family gathering: people were happy and selfless and decent. Among the partygoers, Jethro met Eric, a native Fairbanksan about his age. Eric drew him a little map to a piece of property in Fairbanks and asked him to come up if he got the chance. And the chance came when a bunch of East Coast Deadheads piled into a vehicle and journeyed up the George Parks Highway to see what they could discover in Fairbanks, known as "Alaska's golden heart." |
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Using the map, they found the property
and started camping near Eric's cabin. While the others trickled away to
other places, Jethro stayed. He took jobs here and there around Alaska but
always ended up returning to the Happy Valley. It was of no concern to him
that the land belonged to someone else. Eric had invited him and Eric's
parents, who had homesteaded back in the 1960s, lived just across the road.
Eric then found another squatter's cabin farther from Fairbanks and moved
into it.
"He ended up living there, and he gave me this place. He just gifted it to me," Jethro says, still in awe of the gesture. But that was how it was among the hippies. They gave of themselves unquestioningly, even if it wasn't theirs to give. So, Jethro went on living there. He treated the place as his base camp, and while he traveled extensively for months at a time, he always returned. He made improvements to the property and added several more structures, a barn for his tools and a sauna for his bones. |
INFORMATION DELETED HERE - UNTIL LEGALITIES INVOLVED WITH JETHRO's HOME ARE FINALIZED......
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I mention that he has
to consider himself unusual to not only take the type of risk he does, but
also to live off the grid and without running water. He scoffs and says,
"We're all wacky to even live in Alaska. The squatting has nothing to do
with that. It's just the fact that you're living without a warm toilet seat."
Jethro points to his outhouse, sitting on trail at least 15 yards from his
cabin. "Some people think it's uncivilized to go use a shitter. I think
it's uncivilized to shit and smell up your own house."
It's easy to romanticize Jethro's life in Happy Valley, but the cabin and property require a lot of work. Jethro has to cut and haul wood for warmth, and he must bring in water safe for drinking. Other than a footpath, there is no access to the cabin, and all goods must be packed in. Until 1985 Jethro lived without electricity, but he has since installed solar panels in a spruce tree behind the cabin. |
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| Hear Jethro talk about the hard work involved with his lifestyle. |
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Still, Jethro recognizes that, ironically, this work affords him some leisure.
Hear Jethro discuss the advantages of the squatting lifestyle.
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| Jethro wakes in the morning,
not to an alarm, but by his biological clock. He swings his feet over the
loft and makes his way down the log beam, notched to mimic a ladder. He
brews himself a cup of coffee and scratches his dog behind the ears. Only
then will he decide what needs to be done that day.
"I'm always working. I don't take a day off. Or every day's a day off — one or the other," he says. "For me, every day is Sunday." Jethro seems to have successfully defied the conventions of American society by living as a squatter, and while being concerned about being kicked off the property, this fear doesn't change his actions. "My parents come to visit quite often. I think they think it's a pretty neat lifestyle. Plus, it's so different for them," Jethro says. "They realize I've created my niche. They've accepted that I've created a pretty neat lifestyle. I have more freedom than most people." |
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Sitting on a stump in
Jethro's kitchen, it occurs to me that he seems happier than most folks
I know. I'm reminded of a saying by John Howard Payne who wrote, "Mid pleasures
and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place like
home." Despite living without plumbing, enduring hard labor simply to maintain
his cabin and knowing that any day someone could force him into homelessness,
Jethro has built an amazing home for himself and seems to found a form of
inner peace.
"Over the years I slowly upgraded the place to meet my needs, and it has been a great base camp for my adventures around Alaska and around the world. I have always had my serene little cabin on the pond to come home to, and it has always served as a place to keep all the treasures gathered through the years," Jethro says. "It has given me a stable place from which to grow and wander, and I have always considered myself a lucky man to have ended up here. It has definitely become part of me and added a lot to who I am." |
Audio extras:
Listen to Jethro talk about the wacky people of Fairbanks. |
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On the Edge Home | Dom | Jethro | Kyle & Becca | About the Project
Contact the author, Gretchen King
e're
sitting in Jethro's kitchen. I'm still nestled in my fleece jacket and
red scarf, and Jethro wears a wool ski hat that looks like it was knit
in South America. It's pulled low on his head, and graying, curly hair
sprouts from beneath it. The room is no more than 20 degrees warmer than
the 30-degree temperature outside. A massive wood-burning range, purchased
at Sears, fills one-third of the room. Jethro tells me he cooks his bread
and other fare in this white behemoth that looks as if it's straight off
the set of "Little House on the Prairie." An L-shaped counter holds a
sink that has no plumbing. He lifts a trap door in the kitchen's wood
floor to show me his two-by-two-foot root cellar, which serves as his
refrigerator. It allows him to keep food cold in the summer and warmer-than-frozen
in the winter. Milk, butter, eggs and more crowd the small space. He pulls
out two forearm-length carrots, grown in his garden. 
